


hold me closer/lock it away

by pixiepower



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Feelings, M/M, Minor Injuries, Mutual Pining, Non-Chronological, half vulcan once removed choi seungcheol if that helps give you an idea of the Feelings thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26062003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiepower/pseuds/pixiepower
Summary: Mingyu finds a way to pull the ground up from beneath Seungcheol’s feet, like the first time the starshipHappinesshad broken through the atmosphere, leaving the air thin but clean, lungs purified.
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Kim Mingyu
Comments: 6
Kudos: 54





	hold me closer/lock it away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kinqarfur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinqarfur/gifts).



> title from “losing you” by wonho.
> 
> my first commission! thank you, chris, for always being an investor. venture capitalism never was so lovely. i hope this is everything you dreamed.
> 
>  **note:** there is mention of a character injured by weapon (knife) in the context of injury recovery/medical attention, but it is mild and not heavily described, though there is some mention of blood. if you need additional warnings please do not hesitate to reach out!

Halmeoni traces the map on her wall, letting Seungcheol’s palms ride on the backs of her wrinkled hands, charting courses she knows better than the field Seungcheol’s little hands cover. 

She can do it with her eyes closed. Probably has, for all the way the downturned corners of her eyes glimmer as she and Seungcheol voyage together in the comfort of their family home, the red of the starmap swimming in Seungcheol’s field of vision.

Almost conspiratorially, she says, “I fell in love in this system.” Her thumb and forefinger bridge a constellation, drawing back a bow between them as though to launch a planet Seungcheol has only kind of heard of. 

At the mention of _love_ Seungcheol tries his best to mask the way his nose crinkles in distaste, catching it as his brow wrinkles and trying to smooth out his features.

Not fast enough.

Halmeoni laughs, presses a kiss to the crown of Seungcheol’s head. “You look so much like your mother when you do that.”

“Eomma says I ought to think before I let my face speak for me.”

“Your mother is a very smart woman, Seungcheol. I know why my son built a life with her,” she says, eyes bright and knee steady under Seungcheol’s shins. Strong, even as Seungcheol wobbles, trying to keep his balance. “A head like yours does well here. But hearts like ours are meant for the galaxies.”

She smiles, then. She pats one hand over the middle of her chest, and then gently over the right side of Seungcheol’s midriff, where his heart beats like hummingbird’s wings under his ribcage.

  
•

Being on the bridge will never feel quite right to Seungcheol, he suspects, whether it’s the first time or the fiftieth, even when the Captain isn’t present. Not least because he seems patently unable to hide his true intentions from anyone.

“Lieutenant Commander, you just missed him,” Yukhei says, eyes taking one last thorough scan over the security panel before kicking his feet up.

“Just call him hyung, Xuxi,” Chan grins, both arms slung over the back of Yukhei’s chair. His fingertips run along Yukhei’s nape, combing where the hair is growing a little long. “He’s not as scary as he looks. Take one look at his face and you’d see.”

Tzuyu sighs, long-suffering and fonder than Seungcheol’s sure she means it to be. “Terms of endearment on the bridge. What would Captain Bae say?”

Yukhei glances over his shoulder, eyes lingering on her where the viewport is casting her in warm suns’ light, her long hair smooth and neat. He grins, easy and charming. “Joohyun-noona has a soft spot for me and so do you, qīn.” Tzuyu colors, shaking her head and disappearing through the door.

“Sorry, hyung, Mingyu was off like phaser fire the second we touched down. You know how he is.”

“Thank you,” Seungcheol says with amusement, taking his leave from the bridge just as Chan slides his hands over Yukhei’s shoulders down his chest.

It makes sense; Mingyu is always first off the ship and last back on whenever they settle in a new atmosphere. It’s like his body sings for new things, goes like a magnet toward people he’s never met and bends over backwards to make them comfortable. Everything is exciting to Mingyu, his willingness to round his mouth over foreign syllables and smile through missteps bursting forth from him. 

Mingyu has nothing to hide. Seungcheol doesn’t need to take a tricorder to him to see the movement of his brain. 

Binary systems always make Seungcheol introspective, the inherent push-pull of two stars on one planet feeling a little too precise. The suns glow red on the inside of his eyelids as he closes them to disembark, lets his vision adjust. 

“Risa is so beautiful,” Mingyu says with a sigh. “Will you come with me to see Suraya Bay this evening?”

“Your talks will be finished by then?”

Mingyu is shrugging when Seungcheol opens his eyes, uniform shirt replaced with a loose shirt in the same color. The gold of it shines in the suns against the lush greenery around them. He is struck by the sudden desire to see Mingyu in blue. “I can’t imagine they’d keep me all too long. The Hedony has had no trouble with the Federation since they joined it. It’s more of a formality than anything.”

Two fingers are tracing around the edges of the back of Mingyu’s hand before Seungcheol even realizes he’s doing it.

“You don’t need to worry about me, hyung,” Mingyu murmurs. His hand flexes slightly, folding back three of his fingers.

“Your actions do not worry me.”

“But you’re worried anyway.”

Seungcheol’s index and middle fingers trace down the length of Mingyu’s where they’re held out at his side. “We can never control what others do,” he says, as some explanation.

It’s a betrayal. Seungcheol can hardly control what he himself does.

He withdraws his hand.

•

Seungcheol has always had stars in his eyes.

On Earth, it’s an expression.

Studying medicine is as real as it gets. Surgery staining his hands red, the color of responsibility not quite washing off with it. It does some work at combating the constellations, makes his father proud and his mother prouder.

At the Academy, it’s a put-down.

They don’t have to say that they expected him to be doing better, the way they see his ears flush green during assessments fundamentally at odds with his transcripts from SNU. Physicals are far less tiring to perform when he is the physician, to say nothing of his Kobayashi Maru test.

When he is awarded Ensign, it’s a confession.

Admitting after they are handed their new insignia that he had dreamed of this takes more energy than Seungcheol expected. The pip twinkles in his palm like the light of Helios, bright and blinding. Sojung tells him he is sweet, in a way that means she understands. She is assigned to the _Remembrance._

He does not confess it anymore. He thinks he doesn’t need to; Seungcheol has always struggled to get in front of his face.

But even for all the stars, Seungcheol’s feet have always been on the ground.

Kim Mingyu finds a way to pull the ground up from beneath Seungcheol’s feet, like the first time the _Happiness_ had broken through the atmosphere, leaving the air thin but clean, lungs purified.

To turn pink and barrel through anyway, to wear everything he feels like a second skin and show Seungcheol what life could be like without even knowing it.

To curl up, laugh sweet and self-deprecating, even if his bones are misplaced and pain shoots over his face, a flash like a phaser before the smile returns. 

The sight of it always twists something in the center of Seungcheol’s body that he can’t name.

Mingyu finds a way.

_•_

_  
V’tosh ka’tur._ His mother’s mother’s praxis, passed down to him.

Diluted. 

Sometimes Seungcheol has half a mind to draw blood, spin it in the centrifuge, see just how little of his ancestors live in him.

He can still feel the suns on his skin as he walks the corridors of the _Happiness_ hours later. Suraya Bay inevitably is glittering outside. He will wait to see it.

Seungcheol is well-acquainted with feeling like he lives a life _without logic._ It feels like a cruel joke, not least because Vulcans are not particularly acquainted with humor, that he should feel so at the mercy of his emotions. That his dark features and his ears and the yellow-green of his blush, his blood, his bruises, are the only link to fifteen generations of tradition that might end with him.

All vestige of discipline and logic instantly go out the airlock when Joohyun’s voice cuts through his com-link, requesting, “ _CMO open sickbay. Requesting attention for Lieutenant Kim Mingyu—“_

“Bay open,” Seungcheol says, hardly having the time to marvel at how low and flat it sounds, how he flew through the corridors practically at warp, before his hand is pressing the doors open, fingers splayed on the scanner.

Mingyu is grinning when he’s hurtled into the bay, a comet tearing bright across the black-grey of the sky. A grin and a grimace occupy the same muscles, twelve of them in Mingyu’s handsome face utilizing energy to reassure Seungcheol with no small degree of futility.

“Ah, just my luck to be in hyung’s care. See, Vernonie, he’ll tell you I’m _fine,_ that it’s nothing a little bedside manner can’t fix—“

“Sit still,” Seungcheol says, both eyes trained on the tricorder display as he slowly runs the medical scanner over the length of Mingyu’s body. The shoulder of his shirt is threadbare now, ribbons of fabric fluttering down his side. Seungcheol imagines the back of it is soaked deep red. Starmap red, maybe.

If he could bear to look.

“Hansol. Ensign Liu will be relieving Mingyu of his duties for the remainder of the day, possibly further. Please ensure both Yangyang and Captain Bae are informed.”

At Seungcheol’s direction Hansol nods, but he shoots Mingyu a tight-lipped, wide-eyed expression before he leaves. Something meaningful, if the way Mingyu tucks his tongue into the side of his cheek and goes a little pink around the edges is any indication. Mingyu is usually easy to read. This is a little like that.

“Mingyu—”

“I’m sitting still,” Mingyu interrupts easily, voice tinted with humor, even as the corners of his eyes draw tight. “Promise.”

“Mingyu,” Seungcheol starts again, more firmly.

He’s once again interrupted. “I’m sorry,” Mingyu says. “The meeting went fine with the Risians, and I was en route back when I got stopped. Pretty rare we get snuck up on by a good old-fashioned mugging, huh?”

“Mingyu!”

Seungcheol doesn’t mean to raise his voice. He doesn’t mean to do a lot of things, lately, he’s noticed. Acting logically, even in complement to feelings the way his maternal family says they must, feels like an impossible task. 

Objectively Seungcheol knows he can make the correct choices. Medical school and Starfleet have shown him that, but they have also shown him that he is just as human as he is Vulcan, possibly more. 

He has seen his father cry. He has cried himself. Recently.

Heartache, beyond his medical training, manifests physically. Seungcheol’s hands are occupied, else he suspects they might go to that low point on his torso, try to diagnose himself with some affliction, or count the flutters of Mingyu’s pulse as it ratchets up closer to Seungcheol’s heart rate.

Mingyu is looking at him, Seungcheol can tell, so he steps behind Mingyu. The gash is deeper than Seungcheol expected and it takes more work than he anticipated to swallow his guilt and anger. 

Red seeps through the fabric and blooms from Mingyu’s shoulder. An odd place for an injury incurred through robbery. Mingyu’s pockets are empty. Had they gotten what they wanted and hurt him anyway? The tricorder creaks in his hand as his grip tightens involuntarily, and he sets it down before laying hands on Mingyu.

Mingyu is still talking as Seungcheol assesses his wound, applies disinfectant and bandages to his shoulder, voice small but insistent, as though he can talk himself into painlessness. He leans into Seungcheol’s touch, and Seungcheol wonders if Mingyu knows he is doing it. A feeling blooms in his torso. It feels warm.

“I’m sorry,” Mingyu offers again, quietly. “I got blood on your uniform.”

When Seungcheol looks at him, Mingyu is already looking back.

•

“He has an _unfireable_ face,” Seungcheol mentions to Minghao apropos of nothing, molars aching with sucrose, still spilled sweet over his taste buds. 

It had seemed the right thing to do, a kind thing to do, to allow Minghao to refuse ice cream and to eat it in his stead. Vulcans are only marginally interested in maintaining the social comfort of others. Humans, however, exalt it above all other duties. Figures that Seungcheol would put down roots somewhere in the middle, wouldn’t waver, would just shove the spoon into his mouth without a second thought and deal with the consequences afterward.

Even if the consequences in this case are wearing his emotions like instincts, like his uniform, ever-present on the surface, in a way where _eo halmeoni_ would very likely say he’s distinctly unbalanced. He hasn’t been meditating enough, he’s certain of it. That telltale ache in his midriff when he forgoes it for too long is returning hour by hour.

His mouth feels cold and tingly, and his words are tumbling out of their own accord. Making conversation. Small talk, Seungcheol thinks absently, as he and Minghao withdraw from mess and walk through the corridor. 

“No sane being would fire on him. It makes perfect sense for him to be the first party from the Federation for anyone to see. He’s comm officer, and his expertise in exolinguistics and his acquaintance with myriad customs make him a natural fit to lead any diplomatic mission. And he looks like that.”

Minghao turns, then, something like mirth flitting over his face. “Like what?”

Seungcheol feels his brow furrow. It’s obvious. Sweetness is making its way to the back of his tongue, flooding his mouth. “Objectively handsome. His build is attractive. His face is symmetrical. He has charming features. His canines are almost Klingon in nature, and it inhibits his speech when he gets overenthusiastic, so he sometimes speaks with a lisp. It is charming. He is very charming. And it is not superficial.”

“Unfireable,” Minghao repeats. His smile is placating, his eyes sparkling. “Do you spend your time analyzing all of us like this?”

Frown deepening, Seungcheol says, “No.”

“I see.” Minghao laughs in earnest, then.

“Ought I to?”

“I can do without.” Minghao jerks his head toward the bridge as they pass it. “I think Mingyu would be flattered, though.”

•

The needs of the many often outweigh the needs of the few. No truer is this than when you are an officer for Starfleet, when you are entered into an agreement with countless others to voyage the galaxies. There is a mandate of mutual awareness and care that supersedes all others. It is this which guides Seungcheol more than anything.

While responsibility lingers, Seungcheol reasons that perhaps it is possible that several needs may at once be equally pressing.

“Why are you apologizing?” Seungcheol asks gently. He has always been commended on his bedside manner.

Instinctively Mingyu tries to shrug, then lets out a squeak of pain. Seungcheol’s hand steadies his back, one at the shoulder and the other at the small of Mingyu’s waist. Mingyu is still so pink. “I don’t know,” he lies. After some cold-hulled silence, he counters, “Why do you hold onto your composure like this?”

Joshua said once that Seungcheol imagines himself differently than he is. _Not that you have an ideal self, like, of course we all do, but it’s more that you don’t see yourself the way we see you._ He had laughed when Seungcheol asked him to elaborate.

Seungcheol rarely hesitates. Always asking forgiveness, not permission. How irrational.

“I don’t know,” Seungcheol lies.

The hand on Mingyu’s good side catches Seungcheol’s wrist, and shockwaves go up Seungcheol’s arm, sticking in his throat and burning at his ears and rendering him speechless. Mingyu’s humor is gone in entirety, and what stares up at Seungcheol are earnest eyes, open and wild and _human._

For biology to render the most innocuous of touches so sensitive and for half the branches on his family tree to assert that allowing themselves to give into that sensitivity is lesser than? The contradiction has always stuck out to Seungcheol. He would rather leave it. Not for laziness, or unwillingness to, but to feel whole.

Why would he fight against this? Why would he try to control this?

Seungcheol rotates his hand, wrist against wrist, vein against vein, and slides his fingers into the spaces Mingyu’s fingers left for him. He lets himself gasp, lets the vision of Mingyu feather as his eyelashes flutter.

“I have had,” Seungcheol starts, tight and breathless, “such an ordeal looking after you.”

“You worry about me.” It’s like Mingyu’s whole body is smiling along with his face, a sunflare in close quarters. The gold of his shirt still suits him, even as ragged as it is.

“Constantly,” Seungcheol confesses, and leans in, bending at the waist to catalogue the feeling of his lips catching the corner of Mingyu’s mouth. His smile.

Mingyu giggles, and the air of it is choppy and warm and spiced like tea, and he’s waiting, possibly for the first time in his life. His injury is still fresh. He shouldn’t strain himself. He is waiting for Seungcheol, but it’s not passive, just—

logical.

Seungcheol kisses him. 

The sound Mingyu makes goes straight through Seungcheol, something like happiness. He can feel the quirk of Mingyu’s grin disappear as he presses the plush of his mouth to Seungcheol’s lower lip, parted lips moving against Seungcheol’s with all the fervor Seungcheol didn’t let himself linger on. Mingyu kisses the way he does all else, with an eagerness to learn that far exceeds his peers. He has a knack for it, Seungcheol is keeled over to discover, letting Mingyu explore boldly. The atmosphere is thick around them.

Mingyu’s thumb is caressing the cradle between Seungcheol’s index finger and thumb, soft on the web, and even after it all it’s this which overwhelms Seungcheol. He pulls away, straightening and closing his eyes for a brief moment to process. Mingyu’s laughter curls sweet past his molars.

Seungcheol doesn’t know how he is expected to remove his hand. He does it piece by piece, slow until he can breathe again, pressing the pads of his index and middle fingers to Mingyu’s.

The first thing Seungcheol can get out is an observation. “Your mouth is all red.”

“Yours too,” Mingyu says, eyes glued to Seungcheol’s mouth. He looks like he wants to chase it again. His chest is heaving, and there’s this expression of pleasure-pain that’s flickering in his eyes. “You’re all green and red.”

Complementary colors. Of course.

Seungcheol laughs, and Mingyu’s face breaks open with delight. Mingyu is unfailingly, wholly emotional. It might be worth it to embrace that, in more ways than one.

When Seungcheol looks at Mingyu, he sees stars.

**Author's Note:**

> idol cameos/mentions: yukhei (lucas) from nct/wayv/superm, tzuyu from twice, joohyun (irene) from red velvet, sojung (sowon) from gfriend, yangyang from wayv.
> 
> thank you for reading!
> 
> find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/pixiepowerao3) and [curiouscat](http://www.curiouscat.me/pixiepower/)!


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